The following column was published by the Lapeer County Press on Saturday, May 3

May is National Nurses Month across our country. We are incredibly grateful for the compassion, dedication and care nurses provide to us and our loved ones.

We should be supporting these critical medical professionals, not building regulatory walls around them that make our state less attractive to work in.

I recently introduced a bill that will cut red tape for our nurses while getting more people needed care. House Bill 4246, which has bipartisan support, joins our state with 43 other jurisdictions in recognizing a registered nurse’s license from one state as sufficient to practice in another.

This beneficial agreement will provide Michigan nurses with more freedom and flexibility within their careers. This is incredibly important given the rise of telehealth services to patients, and being in the compact means nurses can quickly cross state borders to provide vital services in the event of a disaster.

Telehealth is a rapidly growing service, extending healthcare to patients in underserved areas. Patients can receive care and communicate with medical professionals from their own homes or workplaces since providers can monitor patients’ vital signs, medications and other health parameters remotely. It can also reduce waiting times.

If nurses who currently practice in Michigan or ones who are looking to locate here are forced to go through time-consuming, duplicative and costly licensing requirements, they may be inclined to work elsewhere. Over the past few years, we have unfortunately seen a lot of red tape that has impacted workers, job providers, and many other groups. Asking a nurse who has already shown the capability to perform their job in another state to re-apply for a license in ours is overregulation at its worst. It naturally draws away medical professionals who can help keep our families and communities healthy, but don’t want to bother with a burdensome and unnecessary extra layer of government.

The good news is there has already been significant action in the Legislature on a similar bill. In March, the Michigan House overwhelmingly voted to advance HB 4032, which makes Michigan a permanent member of the Interstate Medical Licensure Compact. My plan would simply allow nurses to have the same abilities as physicians would through that compact to practice their profession in and out of Michigan.

I was told a story from someone who worked at a dialysis center about when Hurricanes Irma and Maria ravaged Puerto Rico in 2017. These powerful storms knocked out power and devastated the island. Dialysis centers there needed extra help to give patients the life-saving care they needed. Unfortunately, nurses from Michigan were not allowed to participate in a life-saving mission because their license was only recognized as valid in the state of Michigan.

In the years before and after, there have been many examples like this where our nurses could assist in times of tragedy to save lives. But our most compassionate professionals who serve our residents at every hour of every day are excluded from being able to use their licensure and those skills on these types of missions. That needs to change.

We should be prioritizing people’s access to healthcare and getting rid of regulation that doesn’t make sense for workers and families. My bill will help our state improve in these areas.